


Gone, Gone Like the Evening

by APgeeksout



Category: Banshee (TV)
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Episode: s01e05 The Kindred, Gen, implied Siobhan Kelly/Lucas Hood, loss of possessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2014-12-14
Packaged: 2018-03-01 09:11:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2767664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/pseuds/APgeeksout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's too much to think about, all the things the fire's consumed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone, Gone Like the Evening

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "loss of possessions" in round 5 of hc_bingo. 
> 
> Title snagged from Brandi Carlile's "Gone".

Meg is already on her way by the time the boss arrives. Emmett had called her the moment he and Alma had recognized Siobhan's address on the emergency call. 

She doesn't say anything to correct him, though. Her throat is too raw, from the screaming and from the smoke and from not fucking cr, to make non-essential talk worthwhile. And so long as he's in Sheriff mode, assessing and directing and half-ass following investigation protocols, he's not hunkered down beside her, being solicitous and whiskey-voiced and every other thing she hasn't decided yet if she wants to let him be for her. 

She's turned her back on the remaining shell of the house. She's seen that it's a lost cause on the face of every new arrival from the Banshee County Volunteer Fire Department, so instead of watching them at work, she's looking across the wooded lot at the weird shadows thrown around by the lights of the emergency vehicles and the flames as they slowly exhaust the fuel source that used to be _home_ to her. 

It's too much to think about all the things the fire's consumed: everything in her wallet, the freshly-opened bottle of Maker's Mark she'd had exactly one shot from before jumping into the shower, the black boots she's just recently worn in soft and comfortable, her favorite pair of jeans, her parents' wedding pictures, the one photo from her own wedding that she'd talked herself out of burning in the sink the night she'd destroyed all the others, the pantry door-frame where her height is faithfully charted on the bare wood in Sharpie, the sun-quilt pieced together by her mother's grandmother, the romance novel she'd promised to read for Alma's new book club only to stall out in chapter 5, the over-stuffed chair where she sits up on nights when sleep won't come. The loss is too big to get her arms around. 

Time then to inventory the things she has left. 

One set of pajamas – plaid pants and a stretched-out tank top that the smell of char may or may not wash out of. 

She supposes the V.F.D will let her keep the fleece blanket one of them has draped around her shoulders. 

Her service weapon. An extra clip in her glovebox. 

A dozen bottles of Sugar's cider and a few bags of wide noodles from the Bowmans' booth still in her trunk. Some CD's and mints and maybe a hairbrush in the console. 

Before she can recall what other pieces of her life might be tucked into her car, Meg pulls to the curb and hurries across the grass to her, carrying the green hoodie she left on the back of a patio chair the last time Emmett cooked-out for the B.S.D. It's the most beautiful piece of cotton she's ever seen. 

Meg wraps her first in the sweatshirt and then in a hug, and when Emmett comes to put strong arms around them both, she adds _a place to sleep_ and _friends worth keeping_ to her list.

 

The next morning, she gets to add a few things more: the change of clothes and set of toiletries in her locker at the Cadi, the picture taped up inside (a group shot of the Department Christmas party her first year as a Deputy), her heavy stoneware mug in the communal kitchen. 

Alma's left her a care package of lotions and soaps, red wine and dark chocolate, a standing invitation to home-cooked dinners and her guest room. It's joined on her desk by the mix-and-match case of craft beer Brock has done for each of the three birthdays they've been colleagues. This year, there's also a sturdy bottle-opener and a new set of beer glasses.

She also ends the day with a new fistful of heavy silver rings, and a too-familiar eddy of curiosity under her skin.


End file.
